Villagers try to rescue their neighbours after furious teenager Victoria (Isabel Hodgins, 13) douses the house in petrol. She plots to take revenge on her dad as she believes he was behind the barn fire that killed her mum Sarah.

But in a furious showdown she is stunned to discover her brother Andy was really the one to blame.

Screams

Holding a lighter above the petrol-soaked cottage, she screams: “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to burn, you murdering filth? “My mum was screaming until the moment she died.”

Despite Jack taking the lighter, the house blows up when he turns on a tap which ignites the boiler, sending fireballs throughout the building.

In the sensational scenes, ex-con Billy Hopwood (David Crellin, 45) charges into the house to drag them out, feeling responsible for the event.

The jailbird had told Victoria that her dad had more to do with her mum’s death than he had been ­letting on. The schoolgirl tracks down her mother’s lover and asks him outright if Jack (Clive Hornby, 62) was the one responsible for her death.

When he refuses to answer she takes it as “yes” and races home to wreak her revenge. Jack and Andy (Kelvin Fletcher, 23) return home to see her covered in petrol and she demands to know the truth about her mum’s death.

As she turns on her dad, Andy is forced to come clean. The revelation – and the build-up of petrol fumes – make Victoria faint and gash her head on the banister. As Jack treats her wounds, the boiler ignites and, outside, Daz (Luke Tittensor, 17) is knocked out by a fireball exploding through a window.

Clive, the show’s longest-serving star, said: “I swore at one point because an explosion caught me off-guard. They had to edit that bit out!

“I was lying on the floor with the flames all around me, thinking: ‘My God, this is getting pretty hot.’ “There was definitely no acting required that day.”

The dramatic hour-long episode marks the show’s 35th anniversary. It is on Tuesday October 16, at 7pm.